


Vendetta in D Minor

by myrinas_webbe



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Study, Deaf Character, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick is Deaf, Drama, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jason Todd is Red Hood, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, jason was never robin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrinas_webbe/pseuds/myrinas_webbe
Summary: In this AU, Jason was never Robin, but died at the hands of the Joker trying to avenge his mother's death. Talia brings him back from the dead for her own purposes, convincing him Batman is responsible for all the pain he endured in his life. While she knows who Batman is, she leaves Jason to discover his identity for himself. As a phoenix rising from the ashes reborn and ready for retribution, Jason Todd returns to Gotham and establishes himself within the elite, catching the attention of Bruce Wayne and the eye of his deaf ward, Dick Grayson.





	Vendetta in D Minor

An AU where Jason was never Robin but killed by the Joker and brought back to life by Talia al Ghul. Trained by her in secret, he has but one mission—bring down the man he has come to blame for his life: Batman. But Fate stepped into his life one final time, bringing with her the silent shadow of the Dark Knight. 

**_Aria in Red: Jason Todd_**

It was the thirty-first consecutive day of an unprecedented heat wave when the world first heard the angry cries of Jason Peter Todd. Brought into this world unbidden, he was born on the fifth floor of a walk-up tenement in Crime Alley, the product of too much vodka and the weakened resolve of a strung out girl needing a quick fix. With a shock of reddish brown hair on his head and closer-to-green teal eyes, he was the product of two people forced together by circumstance and kept together by the concession to a life marked by one bad choice after another. It wasn’t too long before Jason realized he was one of those choices. And his father’s rage reminded him of that fact night after night, long after the half-hearted attempt from his mother to draw the man’s ire to herself. Fate made sure to keep him an only child, though he knew from hushed whispers and swollen eyes that there had been more than one lost attempt, though whether through nature or choice, he was unsure. Either way, Fate was cruel in her need to keep him lonely.

At five he learned what the heavy brass buckle of his father’s belt felt like against his back, what the snap of the worn but efficient leather felt like against his fair skin. He had made the mistake of reaching for a second half of a thin bologna sandwich, his stomach knotted in pain and shrunken from disuse. The stale bread and old lunch meat was the first thing he had eaten in days, an oasis offered to him on a chipped plate next to his father’s recliner. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make twice, though he would know the feel of his father’s belt cutting through his skin for many years to come.

At ten, he learned what it was like to be truly expendable. Traded to a lanky dealer with the mean streak of an old junkyard dog for over a month to pay his mother’s debt. It was then he finally realized why his parents kept him around, despite the flat-out hatred that shone from deep behind his father’s eyes: he was collateral. At first, he served as an indentured slave to work off his parent’s debts, on his hands and knees scrubbing floors, toilets and dragging bags of dirty clothes to and from washaterias, the load far too heavy for his malnourished frame. When he was older, he was on his knees for a different reason, choking for air as bitter liquid filled his mouth, his nose buried in greasy curls, his fists balled so tightly his palms bled from the curve of his nails pressed hard into the sensitive flesh.

At twelve, he saw his first glimpse of the caped figure that watched over Gotham from high atop the art deco highrises. When he was younger, his mother tried to shield him from the harsher realities of their lives. But as her addiction dug its talons deeper into her back, protecting her child became less of a priority. Soon enough, Jason discovered that the job loading pallets down by the docks was just a cover for his father. Willis Todd was a go-to man for Two-Face, one of his goons used for brute force and to clean up any collateral ‘messes’. His stint as a medical student made him more than just hired muscle, but barely. It also caught the unwanted attention of one very intimidating adversary.

Jason had come home one night after scavenging the dumpster outside _L'uccello Rosso_ after the dinner rush for any scraps to find his father cowering in the corner and a dark figure looming over him. The half eaten spaghetti bolognaises fell to the floor, the sauce splattering across the room like droplets of blood. Jason felt an involuntary thrill shoot through his veins at seeing his father be the one cowering for once. He knew he was supposed to feel fear when the cowled head turned sharply and the white eyes focused solely on him, but instead Jason stood his lanky frame to full height and squared his shoulders, challenging Gotham’s self-appointed avenger. The dark head cocked slightly to the side, and the white lenses narrowed, studying the boy, this bruised child with fiery teal eyes and a daring smile spreading across his lips. Then, just like that, the spell was broken, and the Bat turned towards the window with a promised, _We’ll speak again._ Jason could have sworn he saw another figure that night, a smaller one with lithe limbs and warm skin, whose shadow merged into the Bat’s once he slipped out the window. A silent ghost with a daring smile to match Jason’s own.

At thirteen, Jason met the Bat face to face again, this time by chance. One hot, summer night, he had been out sneaking a smoke on the fire escape of an abandoned tenement a few blocks from his own, when he heard the quiet whir of something unfamiliar. One highlight of his young life was that old man D’Marco let him hang around his garage sometimes to watch the grease monkeys work and had even tossed a wench his way a few times with a wink and a smile. Over the years, he had learned to identify the sound of every engine imaginable. The heady roar of a Mustang. The sharp purr of a Kawasaki. The gruff heave of a work horse truck. But this, this was—

 _The Batmobile_. A slow grin began to creep across the boy’s face. _Well, shit._

Jason scrambled to his feet, cigarette falling into the alleyway below, forgotten, as a bigger, better prize came into the boy’s sight. The unoccupied, slick ride of one Dark Knight. He watched as it came to a stop, parking itself beneath his perch, canopy closing and lights blinking red as a series of alarms locked it up tight.

But not tight enough.

It took him just under two minutes to disable the cursory alarms that had been set. Five to disarm the more serious ones. Jason learned that all car alarms worked on the same premise. Even something as advanced as the Batmobile. Stick to the basics, he had taught himself. Everything has a starting point. In just under ten, he was sitting in the driver’s seat, mulling over his options. Stealing it outright would be a bonehead move, though would make him a legend in Crime Alley. The Narrows. Hell, the whole damn city. But it was impractical and he knew his father’s wrath for bringing the Bat’s unwanted attention the Todds again would cost him the beating of his life. So when he gripped the sleek steering wheel, eyes roaming around the ally, the gleam of a crowbar in the corner gave him an idea. By the time the car’s owner finally emerged from the shadows, dropping soundlessly onto the decaying cobblestone, all four tires had been stripped and were neatly stacked in the corner along with the lug nuts, laid out on the pavement before them in the pattern of a crooked, cockeyed smiley face. After all, this wasn’t about a quick buck. No fence was dumb enough to want something as hot as those tires. No, this was about showmanship. And Jason was ever the showman. That night as he hid atop the fire escape, peering into the alley below to catch the aftermath of his escapade, he thought he heard a muffled laugh escape from behind that imposing cape. A light, daring laugh. And in the paleness of the moonlight and teasing shadows, he swore that the lips beneath the cowl briefly quirked up before falling back to a stony expression. But just like the Batmobile itself, soon they were a distant memory in the hazy fog of Gotham’s heavy night.

At fifteen, the small scrap of luck that had been keeping the Todds edging through their miserable existence as a family finally ran out. First his father left one night to take care of a six-foot two problem that had been skimming from his boss’ till and never came back. Whether or not it was because Two-Face had discovered Willis Todd also had his hand in the cookie jar, Jason would never know. Or care. But then his mother died in his arms, eyes rolled the back of her head, bloody foam erupting over her chapped lips, her heart stopping after a massive seizure as a result of a new, potent drug. It took Jason one week to track her dealer, two to find her dealer’s supplier and a month before he finally heard the name of the man who had created the lethal mixture.

_The Joker._

After five long months of surveillance, bartering, and walking a fine line between questionable and outright unethical behavior, Jason finally got the lead he was looking for. Outfitted in black pants, gloves and boots, with a dark red hoodie pulled over his unruly curls, on a cold, silent night, he smashed through the second story window of an abandoned warehouse by the docks. But he was grossly unprepared for what it meant to go up against a genuinely unhinged psychopath. He was fifteen and running on rage alone. No training. No skill. No plan. Just a street smart kid with a viscous right hook and a heart for vengeance. Neither of which did much to protect him against the curved end of an unforgiving crowbar.

Jason died choking on his own blood.

It was the tenth day of a bitterly brutal snowstorm that he took his last breath in this world. At age fifteen years, nine months, three weeks and two days, Jason Peter Todd was buried in a pauper’s grave in Gotham’s Old Three Stone Cemetery. His father missing, presumed dead. His mother taken by an overdose, buried three rows over, beneath a dying elm tree, one of many dumped in a shallow grave used by the county for those who had no one to pay for a burial service. And then, then Jason should have been no more than a statistic in Gotham’s ever-rising murder count, a footnote mentioned in an apathetic detective’s report about an explosion down by the docks. Intact corpse found in debris. Unidentified Caucasian boy. Age unknown. Manner of death: blunt force trauma to head. Suspected weapon: heavy metal object. Suspect: Joker or known associate. Motive: unknown.

But that wasn’t the last the world had seen of Jason Todd. Fate took to her loom once again and began to weave a new string of life from the frayed strand that had been severed by a maniacal clown wielding a crowbar. And she had a bit of help from the raven-haired daughter of an equally insane madman. Seventy two hours after his heart stopped pumping blood through his veins, it jolted back life. First with a sporadic burst of beats before gradually settling into a fragile rhythm. A finger twitched next, then a toe. The need for air burned deep in his chest, but his body was confused, was unsure of how to get what it needed. Then it remembered. Chapped lips suddenly sprang apart and air was gulped down in wild, sputtering breaths. At last there was consciousness. A foggy awareness of existence and nothing else. No memories. No cognitive thinking. Just pure, primal existence. A broken mind housed in an equally broken body. A body that was buried in a cheap pine coffin under six feet of frozen soil and a small, metal plaque the city used for unidentified corpses.

_Do not be frightened. Fear is a weak man’s emotion. Be angry, little one. Be angry._

Frantic fingers began to claw through porous wood, desperate to find air, light, anything. Splinters dug into tender flesh, fingernails tore from their protective bed.

_That’s it little one. Dig. Dig your way free._

A voice called to him. A female voice. Urging him on, urging him to burrow his way through layers of dirt, mud and maggots. Calling to him to rise from his coffin and let the rising Gotham sun warm his pale skin once again. And so he did. He dug, dug for what seemed like hours until he finally sprang up through the muddy soil, gasping the smog-filled air and collapsing unconscious before the marker that deemed him John Doe #451.

When he woke again, he was being lowered into some kind of viscous liquid, swirling neon green and near scalding to the touch. His mind was more aware this time, bombarding him with a jagged array of pictures and scenes, unbidden and unconnected to one another. It was like a motherboard short circuiting, sending electronic pulses into a hollow machine unable to process them. He tried to open his mouth to let out a sound, any sound, but then his nerve endings suddenly pricked along his skin, shooting alive in an instant and with it, all of his other senses jumpstarted alive. He could feel again. He could feel his jagged bones knitting back together, each fracture now seamless. He could feel his bruised and torn muscles healing, the fibrous tissue weaving itself whole again. He could feel his organs shifting inside him, constricting painfully as they aligned beneath bone and tissue. Then the blood began to push through his veins, hot and thick as it pumped through every inch of his frame. Lastly his skin regenerated, absorbing all the marks from his previous life. Every silvery crisscross embedded against his pale skin where his father’s belt buckle punished him. Every darker burn mark left by sadistic friends of his parents. Every bruise. Every scar. All but one. All but the deep Y-shaped remembrance of his autopsy that cut across his chest and down his abdomen all the way until it was covered by the sparse trail of hairs just above his pelvic bone.

He could feel it all, and it was sheer agony.

A feral scream erupted from his lips as he suddenly sprang up from the Pit’s depths, whole, healed, and at last aware. Completely and wholly aware. And it was too much. When he awoke for the third time, he found his voice.

‘I…I...’

Shadows stirred beside him. ‘You were dead.’

‘Dead.’ He rasped out.

‘Death is but a state of suspension.’

Unnatural green eyes turned to catch a glimpse of a deceptively slender figure beside them. ‘How….?’ The figure shifted closer, the fall of dark hair sweeping into a sliver of light. ‘Why?’

‘All in good time, little one. My name is Talia. Tell me, Jason Todd,’ At last he watched as a beautiful face shifted into view. ‘What do you know about the Batman?’

And that was his second life started. Jason learned how he was injected with liquid from the Lazarus Pit while he was in the morgue, that the mortician had been bribed well enough not to embalm him before his burial. He was now in the secret lair of the daughter of one of the most dangerous men in the world, called from his coffin, raised from the dead, all because of him. _Batman_.

'He sought you out, you know. Followed you. Do you know why he was in your home those years ago? Not for your father, little one. For _you_.'

'Why me?'

'I think he saw a kindred spirit in you. A lost child with no light to guide him. After all, he does seem to have a penchant for taking in strays. Soldiers for his crusade. Surely you weren’t naive enough to think he worked alone.'

Jason’s brow furrowed as something sparked in the back of his broken mind. Some kind of recognition. A shadow within a shadow. A cocky laugh that matched his own, yet more…carefree.

'He was there, you know. The night your father disappeared. The night your mother died. The night you died. He could have saved you all. He could have put those responsible down years ago, like the rabid animals they are. But his precious honor won’t allow it. So he locks them in Arkham and trusts a corrupt system that releases them to the streets in a matter of months for the cycle to start all over again. Gotham needs more. Deserves more. Deserves a savior who can do what it takes. She needs _you_ , little one.'

And so he trained. He followed the path of the Bat, not to become like him. But to surpass him. By sixteen he knew fifty-two ways to kill a man with his bare hands. By seventeen, he rivaled the best of the Green Berets in his sniping skills. By eighteen, he knew how to butcher a human body in less moves than it took to break down a chicken on a butcher’s table. The boy that had never even stepped foot outside of Gotham had traveled to Prague, Somalia, London, Russia, Tibet, South America. He spoke ten different languages fluently, this kid from Crime Alley that was jeered in grade school because he would stammer through the lines of his reader. His mind took longer to process each word, and he was mocked mercilessly for it. Longer because no one had bothered to ask him why, to find out that his mind transposed and swapped letters on him. Just another body in an overcrowded classroom, never given the right tools in an overworked system. And so the boy with the sharp mind and love of books fell behind, taunted at school, beaten at home because he just needed the right teacher. If only his parents could see him now, sleeping on a tatami bed, eating foods they couldn’t pronounce, and reading Dante’s works in their original Italian tongue.

By nineteen, Jason’s body had grown to its full height and girth, towering nearly six feet and packed with nothing but solid bulk muscle. He stared out at the world with fiery green eyes, the teal now mixed with remnants of the glowing liquid of the Pit. His brownish-red hair had darkened and a streak of white above his right eye stood stark against the loose curls. He was nearly unrecognizable from that gawky fifteen year old boy who drew his last breath from blood-soaked lips on a cold, concrete floor of an abandoned warehouse. And every day he asked the same question.

_When?_

Always the same response fluttered among the shadows.

_Not yet, little one. Soon, but not yet._

Then, one night, just shy of his twentieth birthday, as he lay on his mat, armed tucked beneath his head, eyes scanning the last lines of the Inferno, that question was finally answered. His door opened and the spill of raven hair fell into the moonlight just before he heard the whispered words.

'انه الوقت'

**_It is time._ **

TBC...

Next up--

Chapter Two: Serenade in Blue: Dick Grayson


End file.
